Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!wucs1!wuibc!gmat
From: gmat@wuibc.UUCP (Gregory Martin Amaya Tormo)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Does `computer literacy' destroy `computer rabidness?'
Summary: I do not even recognize my high-school
Message-ID: <314@wuibc.UUCP>
Date: 21 Oct 88 05:19:34 GMT
References: <25018@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: dwd0238@wucec3.wustl.edu (David Deitch)
Organization: Washington University in St. Louis
Lines: 33

In article <25018@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu 
(Karl Kleinpaste) writes:
>
>So I'm wondering: Is the trend toward making students `literate'
>causing them not to have any real interest in them after all?  Or is
>this lone data point completely out of the norm?  Corroboration or
>refutation?
>
>--Karl

	Is that what happened.  I was one of those like your friend.  I
first started on my school's DEC PDP-11 system 34.  We had a lax computer
lab (the lab teacher knew less about the system than I did by my freshman
year).  I was the third student to prepare for the CS AP test by
independent study program.  The next year they implemented an AP CS course,
and now it is discontinued.  The Jr High has a large Apple II lab, and the
High School dumped the PDP in favor of a PC clone lab.  Now students only
use it for class work, the lab proctor is a strict rule-maker, and the room
is climate controlled, ect...

	When I as a Senior, I had the freedom to write a program that would
crash the system by filling it up with psuedo devices and opening files.
The only way to fix it was to do a cold boot, which would take hours.  I
never ran the program.  It was satisfaction having tested it to the point
that I knew it would work.  Now students have to check out all software and
manuals, and sign a statement that they will not copy software.  And I
understand they have 2 AP tests now for CS.  It's like a loss of innocence.
Or do we just look at it differently now that we are older.


		David Deitch, Computer Connection
		dwd0238@wucec3.wustl.edu
		Fido 1:100/22